October 17, 2024

Passage Read: Ephesians 1-2
Meditation Verses: 2:1-3

Thought

We all formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air who is still working in those who disobey the Lord. We all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging in the desires of our flesh and mind, being by nature objects of wrath. But when God redeemed us through Christ, we broke from these. They became "former ways of life." We turned away from them and were set free from the prince of the power of the air and his control, no longer to be children of wrath, but children of obedience. These old ways of indulging the flesh and the imagination should have been put off, no longer controlling or characterizing us.

Application

It is neither proper not acceptable for a believer to walk in old patterns of sin, to continue to participate in the practices of the unredeemed world, indulging in fleshly behavior and the pursuit of the lusts of the mind. Instead, I should be fixed on Christ and God, walking in His ways, according to the pattern He set for me in the Scriptures. As a believer in Jesus Christ, my sinful practices and habits should be left behind. My faith in Christ has set me free from my old thinking that led me to do the things of the devil and of my own flesh. Those are former practices, not present practices. So I can no longer tolerate them or permit them, but need to dwell on the new behaviors I inherited from Christ.